Thursday, May 22, 2014

The church's #1 pro-life issue is the environment

Abortion has dominated the pro-life debate for decades, providing a hot-button issue particularly important to Catholics in the United States. But another issue may take its place as the number one 'pro-life' concern, as the National Catholic Reporter argued in a recent op-ed.

In a piece entitled "Climate change is church's No. 1 pro-life issue," the NCR wrote, "The Catholic church should become a major player in educating the public to the scientific data and in motivating people to act for change."

Referencing the 2014 National Climate Assessment, the article said it was time to confront climate change as human-induced problem and see it as the foremost pro-life issue for the Catholic Church ...

[...] If there is a certain wisdom in the pro-life assertion that other rights become meaningless if the right to life is not upheld, then it is reasonable to assert that the right to life has little meaning if the earth is destroyed to the point where life becomes unsustainable. Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodríguez Maradiaga described the problem during a talk opening the Vatican conference. He described nature as neither separate from nor against humanity, but rather existing with humans. "No sin is more heartless than our blindness to the value of all that surrounds us and our persistence in using it at the wrong time and abusing it at all times." ....